Companies in emerging economic powers such as Russia and China are most likely to use bribes when doing business abroad, corruption watchdog Transparency Internationa (TI) said in a report on Tuesday.

Below are the results of TI's 2008 Bribe Payers Index, which ranks 22 leading nations on a scale of zero to 10 on the tendency of their firms to bribe abroad. The higher the score, the lower the likelihood of companies to engage in bribery.

RANK COUNTRY 2008 BPI SCORE
1) Belgium 8.8
1) Canada 8.8
3) Netherlands 8.7
3) Switzerland 8.7
5) Germany 8.6
5) United Kingdom 8.6
5) Japan 8.6
8) Australia 8.5
9) France 8.1
9) Singapore 8.1
9) United States 8.1
12) Spain 7.9
13) Hong Kong 7.6
14) South Africa 7.5
14) South Korea 7.5
14) Taiwan 7.5
17) Italy 7.4
17) Brazil 7.4
19) India 6.8
20) Mexico 6.6
21) China 6.5
22) Russia 5.9

REUTERS